Reading the PJ Books
by Divergent Half-Blood
Summary: Hestia gathers the gods and ten demigods to read all 14 Percy Jackson books/short stories. From the PJO series to the HoO, PJO/KC meetings, mini-quests, and Demigod files/dairies included. The gods will learn more about their children, and the demigods will understand each other better. More people come in later. Rated T for language and violence. ALL RIGHTS GO TO RICK RIODAN!
1. How it all Started

**AN: I know everybody does this. But not many are complete. I will do every book, from the PJO series to the HoO series. And both the demigod files and dairy. It will all be in this series. To be fair, I have only read one where all the books from PJO is complete, and non with the HoO books done. I'll also do this type of thing where all the factions read Divergent, all the Districts read THG, cancer patients read TFIOS, ect, but I will start with the gods and demigods reading Percy Jackson.**

* * *

**Hestia's POV**

It was a peaceful day on Olympus. By peaceful, I mean all the rivals were fighting. Athena and Poseidon were fighting over anything they could fight over. Artemis and Apollo were shooting arrows at each other. Hera and Zeus were fighting over Zeus' kids, Thalia and Jason. Aphrodite and Ares were at the brink of war. The only gods who weren't fighting were Dionysus, who was reading a wine magazine, Hephaestus, who was watching it all happen, Hermes, who was talking to his snakes, and me. I was really getting tired of this.

The demigods had defeated Gaea just a month ago, and instead of enjoying another century of being a god, they fight. If only there was a way to put some sense in them. Then, I had an idea. I told all the minor gods and the gods who weren't fighting (except Dionysus), and they agreed to help. We put my plan into action.

* * *

The next day, we gathered up all the gods onto Olympus, Hades and Persephone included. Some minor gods told the needed demigods the plan. Others made sure we could not leave Olympus. I set up some rooms for the demigods. Hermes found a mortal with the power of an oracle. He wrote twelve books about the life of Percy Jackson and is thoughts. Time to put the plan into action.

"Hello, fellow gods. I have invited you to read some books on the life of one of the most powerful demigods to ever exist. As boring as this seems, I want you to all see that these mortals are valuable and while their out saving us, we're fighting over stupid things. We have brought ten demigods to help explain this. You will be forced to read all twelve books." To prove my point, a stack of books appeared next to my hearth. The ten demigods flashed in. In front of us stood Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, Hazel, Frank, Nico, Thalia, and Reyna.

"Hello, demigods. For the next few days we will be reading twelve books about your lives, five of them mainly about Percy, seven about the rest of you. It will help you understand each other better." They all nodded. Some couches appeared and they sat down. "Do we have to do this?" Zeus asked. "Yes, I want you to understand your children better. I bet only two or three of you know Percy, Annabeth, and Nico all fell into the... pit, and survived." I was careful not to use the word Tartarus. I knew they would probably have a flashback or faint. I looked at them and they were pale. Nico looked like paper. Percy and Annabeth were so close, it looked as if they were trying to merge into one. Poseidon and Athena looked at their kids with worry. Hades tried to act like he didn't care, but you could see worry sketched into his face.

"Anyways, lets get started. The first book is called, The Lighting Thief. It's in Greek. Who wants to read?" "I will." Percy volunteered. I handed him the book.

**AN: Cliffy! Kinda... There's the prologue. For the sake of this story, the gods don't know what happened to their children. Pothena was fighting, and everybody else, idk. Think of something yourself. **


	2. TLT: I Accedently Vaporize My Teacher

**AN: Lets start. Remember, I don't own these books. I'm only a fan girl who wants to own them. Story is third person (omniscient, duh) until I say its not. Here are the meanings of different text in this fanfic:**

**BOLD text: Text from the books**

REGULAR text: Characters talking and their actions

_ITALIC text: Somebody's thoughts_

* * *

**"I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher"**

Poseidon paled. "Don't worry, dad. I make it out." He nodded.

**"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood."**

"Who does?" Nico muttered.

**"If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life."**

"Percy giving good advice? Its the end of the world!" Thalia gasped. Percy did the mature thing and stuck his tongue out at her.

**"Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways."**

At this most demigods looked down, remembering other demigods who have died in war. Some gods felt guilty.

**"If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened."**

_I wish I was a mortal reading this, _thought Leo. _But then I wouldn't have my awesome powers. I'll stay a demigod. _

**"But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. **

**Don't say I didn't warn you."**

_Nobody warned me, _thought Jason.

**"My name is Percy Jackson."**

"Really? I thought it was Captain Obvious." Leo said. This earned a laugh from almost everybody.

**"I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?"**

"Pretty much." Athena said.

**"Yeah. You could say that. I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff."**

"Sounds fun." Athena and Annabeth said at the same time.

**"I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were."**

Athena glared at Percy while Annabeth smacked him in the back of the head.

**"But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes."**

"Chiron!" Every demigod in the room said.

"**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep."**

"Defiantly Chiron." Piper confirmed.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"You always are." Annabeth told Percy. "HEY!"

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"ACTION!" Ares was getting excited.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Nice to see you care about me." Grover said. "When did you get here, Grover?" "As lord of the wild, I kind of have a right to be here, right?"

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"HEY!" "Sorry G-man."

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Grover! Your giving yourself away!" Thalia exclaimed. "Sorry! I couldn't help it!"

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death**-

"WHAT!" Poseidon paled, and a bottle of Advil appeared in his hand. "WHO DARES TRY TO KILL MY SON!"

**-by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh." Poseidon smiled sheepishly.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"Only Grover could say that" everybody laughed and all the tension was released.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

The tension came back. Poseidon looked as his son. _I should have helped him._

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"More." All the gods said in unison.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Percy wants to learn something?!" Thalia asked, with fake shock. "Hey! I'm not that stupid!"

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

Nico's eyes widen in realization.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

_Sounds like a fury, _Athena thought.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Grover!" Yelled all the demigods except Percy. "Sorry! I knew he would see right through me if I lied!"

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"He doesn't even know we exist and he's defending us. Percy's awesome." Apollo said.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

**"He just had to use that picture, didn't he?" Groaned Hades.**

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and -"**

"GOD?!" Yelled the gods. Percy smiled sheeplishly. "Sorry. I didn't know."

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters - "**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. " - and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

" Way to summarize a 100 year war." Frank said. He startled everyone, since he was so quiet.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted" Jason said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"I think like a goat..." Jason turned bright red. "No brother, goats think like you." Thalia said, clutching her stomach from laughing.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

"She had this HUGE crush on you, Percy." "EWWW, WHAT?!" Percy gagged."Yeah, why do you think she acted like that?" Grover asked. "Gods, kill me now." "You sure?" Zeus asked.

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"More like donkey ears." Leo snickered An IM shimmered infront of him. "What was that, Leo?" Chiron asked. "Uh... nothing, sir." He wiped his hand through the mist. "Busted." Percy said.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"You don't know anything, Percy." "HEY! Is it pick on Percy day, Nico?"

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

_Boys, so immature._ Artemis thought.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

_They probably have. _Thought Annabeth.

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"It was for the best, seaweed brain." "I know that now."

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C - in my life. No - he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Stupid dyslexia." Muttered Percy.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He probably was." Grover wistfully said.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Everybody looked at Zeus and Poseidon.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school - the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius."**

"I didn't know that." Thalia said, sarcastically. "Haha, I'm feeling the love, Pinecone Face.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everybody burst out laughing. "Sorry, Perce." "S'okay, G-man."

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

_He really is different. He cares about his mother._ Artemis looked at Percy. "Why can't you all be like that?" Hera asked the gods.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

"Cool. I'm so making one of those afterwards." Leo said. "I'll help." Hephaestus smiled at Leo.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends - I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists - and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"She must be real ugly" Aphrodite shuddered at the image.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

Cue looks at Poseidon.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see - "**

**" - the water - "**

**" - like it grabbed her - "**

Cue glares at Poseidon from Athena.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

"Your so oblivious, Seaweed Brain."

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey - "**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"Never guess you punishment." Hermes told Percy.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped.**

**"It was me. I pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"She's not that bad." Nico stated. People gave him weird looks.

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But - "**

**"You - will - stay - here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

"Enough with the honey!" Apollo exclaimed.

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. **

All the demigods except Annabeth shuddered. That was a bad stare.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

_She's a monster. _Hazel looked at Percy with sympathy.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"I wish" Poseidon said.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"Percy was nice? AHHHHHHH" Nico screamed. He got splashed with water.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

_I wish you would have been right, Seaweed Brain._

**I said, "I'll - I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

"You never know, Percy." Leo got splashed with water, too.

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

The boys got a dreamy look on their face while the girls rolled their eyes.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"That's a great book! My son wrote it!" Athena said, with disgust.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

"Riptide!" Yelled all the demigods in unison.

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp." Ares got dosed with water from both the father and son.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"Your killed a fury with no training? You are fit to be Praetor." Reyna told him.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Yes Percy, your lunch had magic mushrooms."

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

_The mist _Thalia looked at Percy. He was going to go crazy if they used the mist like that.

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

Percy looked up. "End of chapter." "Lets keep reading." Athena suggested. "I'll read, if someone explains what going on." At the entrance of the throne room stood a 7 year old Percy. Behind him was a 7 year old Annabeth, and regular Clarisse. "Here, Prissy. I found got zapped up here and found the younger versions of you two. There was a note, too." Percy took the note and read it aloud:

_Dear Gods and Demigods,_

_We decided to take this as an advantage to do entertain ourselves._

_We will send in younger demigods and maybe even gods. We are currently watching the events unfold in 2030._

_Also, from now on, Percy who is currently 17 in your time (2014) will feel whatever he felt in the book._

_Sincerely,_

_Future Apollo, The Fates, and Hermes._

"That's... interesting." Said Chiron, who was behind Clarisse. Then, Chris, Connor, Travis, and Katie appeared. "Let's get this party started!" Katie told everyone. Little Percy, AKA PJ, took the book.

**Chapter TWO: THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH.**

**AN: So the two littles will be PJ and AC. I wanna have Luke, Beckendorf, and Silena come back, too. Luke will probably come for TLH. The other two, maybe for TC. I also wanna bring Poseidon and Athena from when Percy barely arrived at camp, too. Zoe (on computer, cant put two dots over e) back, around when they start SoM. Review!**


	3. TLT: Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

**Sorry I haven't updated. I get a lot of homework. I read the reviews,and for those of you who reviewed, thanks so much! I was going to leave the story uncontinued until summer, but the reviews encouraged me to continue this story. With no further delays, I present chapter 2. Oh, before I forget, all rights go to Rick Riodan.**

* * *

PJ grabbed the book (in ancient Greek) and started reading.

**Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death**

Annabeth's eyes widened. It couldn't be...No, he would have told her.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. **

"Until the hallucination becomes your life." Leo muttered. Some gods looked down. Did the demigods really think that?

**For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas. Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed. **

**Almost.**

"Five drachmas its because of Grover." Travis told Conner. "Deal."

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

Conner gave Travis his five drachmas.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying. Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.**

"Because killing your math teacher isn't something." Thalia said. She got splashed by seawater.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

The demigods shuddered. Percy's dreams were bad. Poseidon wished Sally had sent Percy to camp sooner.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm ****room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. **

"It wasn't _that _bad." Zeus scoffed. Nobody said anything in fear of angering the god.

** I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

A small scowl appeared on Percy's face."WHAT! Annabeth, as I said before, you should break up with this idiot." Athena screeched. "No mother. In case you have forgotten, this idiot fell into Tartarus for me. I won't let him go that easily." Annabeth leaned into Percy. Aphrodite was beaming while Athena was steaming.

** I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"This story needs more action." Clarisse said/yawned. Ares started snoring, but stopped when a flame appeared in front of him and scorched his nose.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

AC, Annabeth, and Athena were practically ROFL-ing. "It...means...old...drunkard..." Annabeth said in between laughs. Some started laughing at the thought of Percy saying that.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. **** Fine, I told myself. Just fine. ****I was homesick.**

Hestia and Hera smiled. This hero had a pure heart. Ares muttered something about being a 'mommy's boy' until Hera slapped him.

** I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

"Paul plays poker?" Piper asked. "No, my ex-stepfather did." Percy snarled with hate, anger, and...fear? PJ's eyes widened at the part about Gabe, taking a quick glance at his arms, which were covered by the sleeves of his shirt. Poseidon and Athena noticed this.

**And yet... There were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

The demigods smiled. Percy always thought about his friends before he thought about himself.

**I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. ****As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. **

_It's something_, Athena thought.

** I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good thing you did, Seaweed Brain." Guess who said that.

** The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room.**

Athena glared at Percy while Annabeth hit him on the back of the head. "That's not how you treat books, Perseus Jackson." Annabeth said, more like screeched, at him. "Umm, sorry?" Percy asked with a lopsided grin. Annabeth's willpower crumbled.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one- eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. ****I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. ****I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

"Yes, Perce. Pick up the book." Leo said in a creepy, low voice. Everybody just starred at him. The gods still couldn't believe this demigod had defeated Gaea just a few months ago.

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

Percy had a sad look on his face. Annabeth lay her head on his shoulder, and he brightened up. Aphrodite squealed a squeal so loud it burst all the windows on Olympus. If you strained your hearing, you could hear a janitor yelling, "Just when I finished cleaning them! Off course!"

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. ****I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... Worried about Percy, sir. "**

"Aren't we all." Reyna whispered to Jasper, Frazel, and Leo. They chuckled and nodded.

** I froze.**** I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Your son makes a great point, Uncle P." It was surprisingly Apollo who said that.

**I inched closer. ****"... Alone this summer, " Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-" ****"We would only make matters worse by rushing him, " Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more. "**

"So basically, never." Katie said. Everybody, even some gods, burst out laughing, while Percy pouted.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- " ****"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can. " ****"Sir, he saw her... . " ****"His imagination, " Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that. " ** **"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again. "**

"Grover, you didn't fail. I chose to do what I did. Besides, I'm here now." Thalia told the book. Some gave her weird looks, but she ignored them.

**Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean. " ****"You haven't failed, Grover, " Mr. Brunner said kindly.**

Chiron looked at the book with extreme sadness.

** "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-" ****The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"NOOOOOOO" Hermes and his children screamed. "You NEVER EVER give away your location when eavesdropping." Chris said with a worried look. He calmed down with one look from his girlfriend.

**Mr. Brunner went silent. ****My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Maybe there is hope as a thief for you yet, Percy." Hermes said, completely serious. "Uh...thanks, I guess." Percy responded.

** A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my** **wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. **

"Chiron, why were you in your horse form around mortals?" Athena asked. "I needed to stretch my legs. The mist would have covered it, and how would I have known that Perseus was spying on me?" Percy slid down in his seat a bit.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. ****A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. ****A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. ****Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing, " he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice. "****"Mine neither, " Grover said. "But I could have sworn ... "** **"Go back to the dorm, " Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow. " ****"Don't remind me. " ****The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. ****I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. ****Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. ****Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. ****"Hey, " he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?" ****I didn't answer. ****"You look awful. " He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**** "Just... Tired. "** **I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. **

"That won't work." Dionysus said. The gods all looked at him. "What? I may as well listen if there's nothing else to do."

** I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. ****But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"A lot of danger, actually." Grover came in. "Naiads told me you were here. I'm guessing your reading a book about Percy?" Chiron filled him in.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. ****For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. ****"Percy, " he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... It's for the best. "****His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

Annabeth, Thalia, and Poseidon had a murderous look in their eyes. "Oh, I'm going to kill her." Annabeth muttered.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir. " ****"I mean ... " Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time. " ****My eyes stung. ****Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"That was kind of harsh." Conner said. "I didn't know what else to say." Chiron responded.

**"Right, " I said, trembling. ****"No, no, " Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... You're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-**" **"Thanks, " I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me. ****"Percy-" ****But I was already gone.**

"Ouch." Leo joked. Nobody laughed.

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. ****The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Well your uncle is the king of the gods. Are you saying we're nobodies?" Zeus bellowed. "For the gods' sake, I didn't know you existed!"  
Poor Percy exclaimed.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

"At least they have manners." Aphrodite said.

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. ****"Oh, " one of the guys said. "That's cool. " ****They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. **

"I disagree with Aphrodite." Artemis said.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Coincidence?" Travis asked Conner. "I think not." He replied, wagging his eyebrows. Katie hit them both.

** During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Scared the hooves right off me." "Sorry, G-man."

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?" ****I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. ****Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?" ****"Oh ... Not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?" ****He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ... " ****"Grover-" ****"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ... " ****"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar. "**

"How does Sunday at four fit for you?" Travis asked Grover. "What do you mean?" "Lying lessons, of course!" Conner responded.

**His ears turned pink. **

As they did now.

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer. ****The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

** Grover Underwood**

** Keeper**

** Half-Blood Hill**

** Long Island, New York**

** (800) 009-0009**

"Why isn't it in Greek?" Demeter asked. "It's funny to see them struggle." Dionysus got splashed with 10 thousand tons of dirty saltwater seconds later.

**"What's Half-" ****"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... Summer address. " ****My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. ****"Okay, " I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion. " ****He nodded. "Or ... Or if you need me. " ****"Why would I need you?"**

"Harsh." Jason exclaimed.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

Jason blushed. "If anyone asks, you think like me." Percy laughed. "No, you think like me." PJ kept reading, afraid of a fight breaking out.

** Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you. "** **I stared at him. ****All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. ****"Grover, " I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?" ****There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

Percy paled. Annabeth and his dad would freak out. They didn't know it was Luke's lifeline. And Hermes...

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. **

** We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. The title, now this... It couldn't be.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

Poseidon fainted. "PERCY JACKSON YOU SAW THE FATES AND NEVER TOLD ME! HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD RIGHT NOW?!" Annabeth had her new dagger that Tyson built at Percy's neck. He lowered it and whispered, "It wasn't my life, it was _his._" Annabeth's eyes widened in realization. She took a quick glance at Hermes, then leaned into Percy. AC shuddered and wondered how her future self could like an idiot like that.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. ****All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. ****The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Poseidon, who had just woken up, fainted again.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. "Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-" ****"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?" ****"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not the time for jokes, Percy." Hades (surprisingly) said.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all. " ****The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. ****"We're getting on the bus, " he told me. "Come on. " ****"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there. " ****"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.** **Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Neither, Prissy." Clarisse said. "Their for that puny life of yours."

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. ****The passengers cheered. ****"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" ****Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. ****Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. ****"Grover?"**

"Yeah?" "The book, not you, Grover." AC told Grover. "Oh."

**"Yeah?"**

"No need to repeat yourself." Travis snickered.

** "What are you not telling me?"**

"Everything." PJ interrupted himself.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?" ****"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"No, they're worse, kelp head." Nico said sarcastically.

** His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw. " ****"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn. "****He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older. **

_Observant... _Athena thought

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord. "** **"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. ****"This is not happening, " Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time. " ****"What last time?" ****"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth. " ****"Grover, " I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?" ****"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me. " This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could. **

"You didn't keep that promise, did you." Artemis said. Percy smiled sheepishly.

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.** **No answer. ****"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" ****He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"No, I was planning your funeral." Grover scoffed. "That's it. Who's next?" PJ held the book up. "I'll read." Poseidon, who just woke up, offered.

**Chapter Three: Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

* * *

**Let me Clear something up: When I said the gods didn't know what happened to the demigods, I meant they don't know the small things about them. Like, they know Percy got the lighting bolt, retrieved the golden fleece, rescued Artemis, etc, but they don't know about his fight with Ares, meeting Aphrodite, his first kiss, Calypso, what happened in Tartarus, what happened on the Argo II (they kept swictching between Roman/Greek, so they couldn't keep track) and stuff like that. Please review! I read all of them. **

**_-Divergent Half-Blood ;)_**


	4. TLT: Grover Loses His Pants

**Unless I get super lucky and Rick gives me the rights, I don't own PJO or HoO. Read on, my friends. Big surprise in this chapter. Use this link (no spaces) if you think I am making the surprise of story up: en. wikipedia wiki / Mnemosyne**

* * *

Rachel flashed into Olympus. "Apollo, why am I here?" She asked. "I think you may want to hear what is happening, my dear oracle. We are reading books about Percy. We're at at the part where he is finding out about Greek Mythology." Rachel sat next to Annabeth and waited for Poseidon to start.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Percy!" Annabeth hit Percy on the arm.

** I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

"I would have ran away, too." Everyone jumped at Hazel's voice, they had forgotten she was there.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off** ** the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. ****"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First, " I told the driver. ****A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Amazing. Annabeth recalled.

"Really nice." Nico said dreamily.

"Mother of the year." Frank suggested.

"Makes awesome cookies." Leo stated.

"The most beautiful, smartest, and kindest mortal ever."Poseidon said, lost in a daydream about Sally. Aphrodite squealed, he actually loved her, and didn't bang her because he felt like it!

** Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. ****The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

The girls cooed and Poseidon went into a daydream about Sally's eyes while he read.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures. **  
**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. **

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"You scored a great woman there, Uncle! She can lie, yet be truthful." Hermes told Poseidon. He nodded, still thinking about her.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never com-plained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. **** Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick-named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

The girls wrinkled their nose in disgust. PJ shivered, which didn't go unnoticed.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... Well, when I came home is a good example.**

PJ eyed Percy. What did Gabe do now?

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living** **room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. ****Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home." ****"Where's my mom?" ****"Working, " he said. "You got any cash?" **

"That's it? No hello, or welcome home?!" Thalia said, outraged someone treated her cousin like that.

**That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**

Everyone laughed at how similar Percy and Thalia were.

** Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"Oh, gods Percy. I feel so sorry for you, having to see that." Piper said glumly.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret. " Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

The throne room went silent. The only noise happened when Poseidon dropped the book. "Percy, did Gabe abuse you?" Poseidon asked. PJ tugged at his sleeves and a tear had escaped his eyes. Percy simply responded, "It doesn't matter."

"Percy, it does matter! Were you abused by that pig or not?" Annabeth asked him, worried about her boyfriend. Percy mumbled something. "Percy?" Nico asked?

"YES, GABE ABUSES ME!" PJ screamed. "What has he done to you, son?" Poseidon, feeling guilt, asked both Percys. Neither responded. "I'll be back," Poseidon said, then flashed out. He flashed in a few seconds later with Mnemosyne, goddess/titaness of memories. She touched Percy's forehead and he fainted. She put him on a bed and spoke a prayer. They were all whisked away into Percy's memory.

The gods and demigods (and oracle) stood on the sidelines, watching from a distance. The only ones not there were PJ, AC, and Percy.

_A seven year old Percy came into the kitchen. He went over to the fridge, and it had a lock on it. Percy jumped onto the counter and grabbed a key from the top. He jumped off and started unlocking the door. Gabe came in, holding a half-empty bottle of beer. "Why are you unlocking my fridge, punk?" He slurred, obviously drunk. "I haven't eaten in five days." Percy responded, in a small voice. "I haven't eaten in days," Gabe mimicked Percy. "Oh, how about we make it weeks. This is my stuff, you have permission to eat. Your lucky Sally is coming back in two days from her trip. You only need to survive two more days without eating. Lucky for me, it gives me more time to shut you up." He picked Percy up by the hair and threw him against the wall. A few bones cracked. He threw the bottle of beer a Percy's head. It gave him a few scars and there was beer over his clothes. Gabe kicked him where the sun don't shine, and dragged him by the ear to his poker game. He sat on Percy's legs and told the others that whoever won the round could abuse Percy for half and hour. Gabe won, of course, and slammed Percy headfirst into the table. He dragged Percy to the bathroom and dunk him in the toilet, not letting him up for 20 seconds. He threw him one last time, straight into the mirror, and told him, "Take a shower and clean this place up. Your messing up my precious apartment." After a long line of colorful words being thrown at Percy, he took a shower and cleaned the apartment up._

They reappeared in the thrown room. Percy was in a fetal position, crying. Annabeth sat down next to him and comforted him. Everyone was shocked. They couldn't believe someone as nice as Percy had been abused that badly. Mnemosyne told everyone that she had gotten a memory that wasn't pleasant, but defiantly not the worst. She flashed out.

Hades made sure Gabe was being punished as much as possible, for Poseidon's sake. Athena was sure Percy would become a abusive man in the future. 97.1% of abused kids do, but then again, Percy wasn't a regular kid.. Artemis was saying profanities about men. Zeus felt a tiny bit of sorry for the hero, but only a little. The other gods were either crying their eyes out or couldn't care less (Ares, Dionysus). The demigods/satyrs/mortal were outraged someone had abused their friend and leader. After a while, Rachel started reading.

**"I don't have any cash, " I told him. ****He raised a greasy eyebrow. ****Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else. ****"You took a taxi from the bus station, " he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

"Surprising the idiot could figure that out," Athena said, who had decided that Percy couldn't be an abusive man because of his fatal flaw.

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe, " he said. "The kid just got here. "**

"Please listen to him." Hazel muttered.

**"Am I right?" Gabe repeated. Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. **

"Go figure." Reyna groaned.

**"Fine, " I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose. " ****"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**  
"You shouldn't, either." Annabeth growled.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study. " He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer. **** I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Percy and his amazing sarcasm." Nico tried. The tension only became worse.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn. ****But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I** **wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Annabeth clung to Percy like a lifeline.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?" ****She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

Hera smiled. All mothers should have that effect on their children.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That's gotta be hard, I already want to put his foot up his-" "Thalia! There are little kids here." Hazel scolded.

** "Oh, Percy. " She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

** Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples, " the way she always did when I came home.** **We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

The demigods felt a pang of jealousy, but quickly dismissed it. If anyone deserved a mother like Sally, it was Percy.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

The girls rolled their eyes. Boys.

** From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?" ****I gritted my teeth.**

So did everyone in the throne room.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Or she could be married to a god like me." Poseidon said. The other gods groaned. Except Aphrodite, she squealed. In the distance you could hear, "I just finished replacing the windows! Ugh, I hate this job!"

** For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such** **a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started chok-ing up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad. **

The demigods smiled. it was so like Percy to feel guilty right now.

**Until that trip to the museum ... **

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my con-science, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?" ****"No, Mom. " ****I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"Not to her..." Poseidon said.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me. ****"I have a surprise for you, " she said. "We're going to the beach. "****My eyes widened. "Montauk?"** **"Three nights-same cabin. "****"When?"****She smiled. "As soon as I get changed. "****I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money. ****Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

At this point, even Hazel was cussing.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here. ****"I was on my way, honey, " she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip. "** **Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?" ****"I knew it, " I muttered. "He won't let us go. " ****"Of course he will, " my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides, " she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works. "**

"Bribery. Best tool ever." Hermes and his kids said in union.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... It comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"It's bad enough mortals need to have a clothes budget! But he's forcing her to use it on something that isn't clothes! That (**fanfiction has deleted this word as it is not appropriate for T rated stories) **is really getting on my nerves! I'm giving you mo ten thousand dollars for clothes right now, Percy!" Aphrodite screamed in one breath. "Thanks, Aphrodite. She hasn't gone shopping in years."

**"Yes, honey, " my mother said.**

"I hope she's using honey like Alecto does." Nico said.

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back. " ****"We'll be very careful. " ****Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes** **for interrupting my poker game. "**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week. **

"DO IT!" Everybody yelled. Ares and Clarisse the loudest.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. ****Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought? ****"I'm sorry, " I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now. " ****Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. ****"Yeah, whatever, " he decided. ****He went back to his game.**

"Oh, you better run." Jason said, supporting his cousin.

**"Thank you, Percy, " my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... Whatever you've forgot-ten to tell me, okay?" ****For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. ****But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip. ****An hour later we were ready to leave.**

"That's too long. Maybe Kronos was making you suffer extra?" Katie suggested.

** Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro for the whole weekend. ****"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy, " he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch. "**

"Like he'd be the one driving." Poseidon muttered.

**Like I'd be the one driving.**

"Like father, like son." Apollo said, causing everyone to laugh harder than they already were.

** I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his** **paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"I found a mortal that actually deserves to go to Tartarus." Leo said. Annabeth agreed, but Percy, being Percy, shook his head. Nobody deserved to go through the pain Annabeth and him went through. Not even Smelly Gabe.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"That's Percy for you!" Conner exclaimed. The gods were surprised the demigods could do that at 12.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it. Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders-**

Athena, Annabeth, and AC shuddered.

** -in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. ****I loved the place.**

"Who doesn't!" Poseidon and Percy said at the same time. Everyone laughed at the pair.

** We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why** **the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad. **

"Barnacle Breath trying to be romantic instead of straight up making out? The world is ending!" Athena joked. It took Poseidon three seconds to figure out what she meant. Rachel continued before WW3 broke out.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

"So that's what drew you to her." Zeus observed.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. I ****guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Yeah, dude!" Every demigod except Annabeth and Grover exclaimed.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"So you got your rebellious side from not one but two parents? No wonder you can't follow directions." Reyna teased Percy.

** When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"I read her newest book the other day. You mother sure can write, Percy." Athena told him "Uh, thanks?"

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them. ****"He was kind, Percy, " she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes. "****Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud. "**

"I am, Percy. I'm prouder of you than I am of any other son of mine." Percy smiled at the compliment. The others rolled their eyes at his ego.

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years. ****"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... When he left?"** **She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin. " ****"But... He knew me as a baby. " ****"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born. " ****I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... Something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"YOU BROKE AN ANCIENT LAW?! FIRST A PACT WE HAD BACK THEN, THEN A LAW! GO TO HADES, POSEIDON!" Zeus yelled. "Oh shut up, brother. You broke the pact twice." Hades said, taking Poseidon's side. As much as he hated Percy, he agreed that no kid should be tortured like that for no reason.

** I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ... I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

"I don't feel like that anymore." Percy said, before his dad cold say anything.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"** **She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. ****"I don't know, honey. " Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something. " ****"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"That's good. You regretted it." Hera said. She didn't like Percy too much, but she respected him a bit for loving his mother, being faithful and defending the one he loved, treating family well, and surviving being abused by his ex-stepfather. Maybe, if he didn't get on her nerves anymore, she would bless him and that daughter of Athena. Maybe.

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."****Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy. ****"Because I'm not normal, " I said. ****"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe. "**

"It's nearly impossible to be safe if your a demigod in the mortal world, specifically for a child of the big three." Chiron said. The demigods agreed.

** "Safe from what?" ****She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget. ****During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"I've always been watching you, Percy. I just wish i saw what Gabe did." Poseidon shrunk to human size and gave Percy a hug. Poseidon was definitely one of the better godly parents.

** Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands. **

"Just like Heracles." Jason whispered, awe-struck.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move. **

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that. **

"Percy is being selfish? The world in doomed!" Thalia teased. Percy did the mature thing: he stuck his tongue out at her.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could, " my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it. " ****"My father wanted me to go to a special school?" ****"Not a school, " she said softly. "A summer camp. " ****My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? ****"I'm sorry, Percy, " she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good. " ****"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ... "**

"One of the best, actually." Chris corrected the book.

** She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expres-sion that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. ****That night I had a vivid dream.**

Percy buried his face in Annabeth's hair.

** It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder. ****I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!**

"I win, like always." Zeus boasted.

** I woke with a start. **

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. **

_The boy made a good simile. Maybe if studies more and acts more mature, maybe then he MIGHT be a better match for my daughter. Too bad he isn't like Theseus.  
_ Guess which goddess of wisdom thought that.

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane. "**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have for-gotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. ****Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. **** My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. ****Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... He wasn't exactly Grover.**

" So what was I? A dog?" Grover asked Percy."Oh, shut up."

** "Searching all night, " he gasped. "What were you thinking?" ****My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.** **"Percy, " she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?" ****I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. ****"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" ****I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... Where his legs should be ...**

"Spit it out, Percy." Rachel interrupted herself.

** My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!" ****I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning. ****She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"**

"On your marks, get set, GO," Conner and Travis screamed.

**Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked. ****Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"The title makes sense now." AC said. Suddenly, a note fell from the sky. Rachel read it:

_Dear Gods/Demigods/Satyr/Oracle,_

_The two little demigods shall go back now. They have been provided with this information so that their future isn't so confusing. We decided that with what's coming up next, Percy shall not feel the emotions he did in the book. He's done well enough hiding them, anyways. Gods, your duties are being taken care of, so don't fret. Time has been paused, too, so don't worry. Chiron will also be sent back. He has learned enough._

_-The Fates_

* * *

**So, whatcha think? Updated twice a day! These take a long time to make, so be thankful that I have some extra time on my hands. How did you guys like the surprise? If you hate me for making Percy an abused kid, too bad. My story. I might make a fanfic in the future about the others traviling into Percy's memories and Annabeth's and Jason's, basically everyone who had a bad childhood, and make the others see how hard their past was. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed. **


	5. TLT: My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

**I have been getting all these great reviews! Thanks for all the love and ideas. I plan to finish all the books in PJO in about two-four months, and books in the HoO series in about the end of October or November. Also, as I am forced to say this, all rights go to Rick Riodan. I am just a fangirl who obsesses over books more than over sales at the mall.**

* * *

After Chiron and the two littles left, Katie took the book.

** MY MOTHER TEACHES ****ME BULLFIGHTING**

"I'm guessing this is where you arrive at Camp, right?" Katie asked him. Percy nodded.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"That's my type of driving." Ares said

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane,**

"Probably." Thalia said. She got splashed with cold water ten milliseconds later.

** or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... Know each other?"**

"Good way to break the ice." Nico stated, completely serious. Hades wondered if Dionysus had made Nico lose his marbles. He would bring Nico back to the underworld after they finished reading.

**Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly, " he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you. "**

"The stalker on hooves." Travis pointed at Grover. "What? No, I wasn't stalking him! I was... keeping tabs on him." Grover tried defending himself.

**"Watching me?" "Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend, " he added hastily. "I am your friend. "**

"Since when did stalkers have friends?" Conner said. Grover huffed and crossed his arms.

** "Urn ... What are you, exactly?" ****"That doesn't matter right now. " ****"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"**

"They'll get him, right Donkey Boy." Annabeth told Grover. "What is it, pick on Grover day?" He moaned.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!" ****I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat. ****"Goat!" he cried. ****"What?" **** "I'm a goat from the waist down. " ****"You just said it didn't matter. " ****"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

"That's true. I'm talking from experience." Chris said, then shuddered. That was not a good prank.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

"Myths! You're abut to become one, boy!" Zeus bellowed. "Dad!" Thalia and Jason complained. Their dad should be the god of drama, along with Apollo.

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?" ****"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!" ****"Of course. " ****"Then why-" ****"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract, " Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are. " ****"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

"You're a decedent of Kraff!" Leo screamed. He got weird looks from everybody. "What? Haven't any of you forced Michael to be part of the Epsilon Cult?" More weird looks. "Fine! Be like that! Kifflom!"

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

"You have the worst luck," Jason said.

**"Percy, " my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety. " ****"Safety from what? Who's after me?" ****"Oh, nobody much, " Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions. "**

"Why did you two try to kill my son, anyways? It's not like I tried to kill Thalia or Nico." Poseidon said, annoyed with his brothers. They shrugged, but inside they started feeling a bit guilty. He was right, Poseidon never tried to kill someone because of their parent.

**"Grover!" ****"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?" ****I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. ****My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK** **YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences. **

**"Where are we going?" I asked. ****"The summer camp I told you about. " My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you. " ****"The place you didn't want me to go. " ****"Please, dear, " my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger. "**

"When am I not." Percy asked Nobody. _**(AN: LOL. Inside Joke :))**_

** "Because some old ladies cut yarn. " ****"Those weren't old ladies, " Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... When someone's about to die. "**

"Took five years, but it happened." Percy whispered to Annabeth, who was on the verge of tears.

** "Whoa. You said 'you. '" ****"No I didn't. I said 'someone. '" ****"You meant 'you. ' As in me. " ****"I meant you, like 'someone. ' Not you, you. " ****"Boys!" my mom said.**

"If your mother wouldn't have fallen for Poseidon, she would have made a great hunter." Artemis sighed.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm. ****"What was that?" I asked. ****"We're almost there, " my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please. "**

"Yes another mile would be great. But seeing your luck, it isn't going to happen, is it?" Poseidon asked Percy. Percy shook his head no.

**I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

As were all the demigods (Except Percy and Annabeth) and the gods.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery-**

"That's not a word." Athena interrupted.

**-wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me. **

"No, she wanted to go shopping with you." Nico said. Some tension was released.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... And the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded. ****I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. ****I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow. " ****"Percy!" my mom shouted. ****"I'm okay... . " I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our** **driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.** **Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

Everyone laughed at the thought.

**Then he groaned "Food, " and I knew there was hope.**

"It's alive! MWAHAHAHAHA!" Leo said, in a Kronos-y voice. "Hey, I'm not an it!"

**"Percy, " my mother said, "we have to ... " Her voice faltered. **

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"Those are horns, idiot." Clarisse muttered. How could Prissy have even gotten the horn, anyways?

** I swallowed hard. "Who is-" ****"Percy, " my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car. " ****My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking. ****"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Here I come!" Thalia made jazz hands and tried dancing. It failed.

**"What?" ****Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"Wait, if we're demigods, and we follow Greek and Roman gods, why do we celebrate CHRISTmas?" Piper asked no one in particular. Nobody knew.

**"That's the property line, " my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door. " "Mom, you're coming too. " ****Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.** **"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover. "**

"Darn you and your loyalty, Percy." Reyna groaned, loud enough for all to hear.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

"Percy's risking his life for you, and all you can think about is food?" Frank questioned. Grover looked down, embarrassed.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... Was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...**

**"He doesn't want us, " my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line. " "But... "** ** "We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please. " ****I got mad,**

"Someone needs anger management." Jason sang.

** then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, **

"I'm half human!" Grover threw his arms up in frustration. Everyone else snickered at him.

**at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull. ****I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom." ****"I told you-" ****"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover. "**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, drag-ging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid. ****Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist- high grass.**

"You should cut that. First, give cereal to the kids, then make one of them cut it." Demeter explained to Dionysus. Hades mentally groaned. Stupid Mother-In-Laws/sisters.

** Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**

The demigods laughed at the mental image.

**-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. ****His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and- white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener. ****I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real. ****I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-" ****"Pasiphae's son, " my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you. "**

"How the Hades that Poseidon score an intelligent woman?" Athena feigned surprise. "For the love of Hestia, stop using my name in vain!"Hades yelled.

** "But he's the Min-" ****"Don't say his name, " she warned. "Names have power. " ****The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least. ****I glanced behind me again. ****The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away. ****"Food?" Grover moaned. ****"Shhh, " I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?" ****"His sight and hearing are terrible, " she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough. "**

"She's so intelligent! Did you use Eros' arrows to make her fall for you?" Athena said. Poseidon huffed and crossed his arms, undignified.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded. **

**Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying. **

**Oops.**

Everyone cheered. Gabe deserved it for what he did to Percy. Percy shuddered from the bad memories, so Annabeth snuggled closer to Percy. Let's just say it worked _really _well.

**"Percy, " my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?" ****"How do you know all this?" ****"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me. "**

"Selfish? More like caring and loving!" Hera exclaimed. She had a high level of respect for Sally.

** "Keeping me near you? But-" ****Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. ****He'd smelled us. ****The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. T****he bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. ****My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said. "**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat. ****He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

_How the Hade- Ares did Percy survivwe this? _Everyone wondered. (Except Ares. He wondered why the boy hadn't charged yet.)

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

"How optimistic." Hazel said, understanding the concept of sarcasm.

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover. ****"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"b****But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away.**

Percy looked down as a few tears escaped his eyes. Annabeth hugged him and whispered comforting words to him.

** He** ** lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. ****"Mom!" ****She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" ****Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... Gone.**

Percy and Hades started a glaring contest.

**"No!" ****Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons. **

"Here comes kick-ass Percy!" Conner and Travis screamed. Katie hit both of them with the book. "Stop cussing, idiots."

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. ****I couldn't allow that. ****I stripped off my red rain jacket. **

"Wow, what a coincidence." Frank said to Percy, who was still glaring at Hades.

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"Ground Beef?" Hermes asked. Percy shrugged but didn't stop glaring.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists. ****I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment. ****But it didn't happen like that. ****The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge. ****Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

Everyone looked at Percy in awe. Percy turned to look at them when he beat Hades at the glaring contest. "What?"

** How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out.**

"The rain?" Annabeth asked, wondering how Percy could have done it. "Water improves your strength, and rain is water. So it could have been the rain." She explained to the others. "Possibly," said Athena.

**A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

Some people cringed. Being thrown into walls and trees hurt.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils. ****The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

_He actually noticed. Maybe if he goes to college and gets a career- No, he's still Poseidon's kid. _Guess who thought that.

** Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off. "Food!" Grover moaned. **

** The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!**

"How were you strong enough to do that, punk?"Ares asked. "Well, I beat you in a sword fight, didn't I?" Percy said back. The gods looked at Percy with interest. Ares never told them that.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife. ****The monster charged. ****Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. ****The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart. ****The monster was gone.**

The demigods cheered. Percy blushed and looked down. He didn't like all this attention. Besides, he let the minotaur reach and mother, so he didn't do everything right.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go.**

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, **

Annabeth glanced at a blushing Percy, still looking down. He thought she was pretty since he first saw her, as a small, ugly 12 year old?

**her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

Aphrodite squealed, now knowing who this was. In the distance, "You have got to be kidding me!" could be heard, along with the sound of glass shattering. Annabeth blushed and looked down, smiling. He had liked her all along.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

"Yeah Annabeth, he's the one." Thalia said, wiggling her eyebrows. Percabeth blushed and looked anywhere except each other, but their hands were still intertwined.

** "Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"That's all, but there's a note." Katie said. "Read it." Athena commanded.

_Dear Book Readers,_

_We have decided to grant the mortals Sally Blofis, Paul Blofis, Fredrick Chase, , Bobby Chase, and Matthews Chase entrance to . They know that the children's lives are hard, but (most of them) think that they just have to kill a few monsters, and that you didn't do much in the wars. Although Sally Blofis/Jackson knows this isn't true, we wanted her to know more about her son, as she hasn't really spoken to him in a while. More demigods will appear when you start the second book._

_-The Fates_

The people listed in the note appeared in front of the gods. "What the?!" "Where are we?" "Is this heaven?" "Annabeth?" Chorused many voices. "Mortals!" Zeus thundered. They all saw him and bowed. "You are here to read about the lives of your children. Please sit on a couch so that we may begin reading." The Chase family (minus Annabeth) sat on a new couch that appeared. Sally and Paul sat next to Nico and Thalia, whom they treated like their own since they visited them so often.

"I'll read next." Percy offered. Katie threw him the book.

**I PLAY PINOCHLE ****WITH A HORSE**

* * *

**What do you think? I'm done adding characters until SoM. I took a request and added The Blofis/Jackson family, along with the Chase family. It takes hours to write one chapter, so please review. I'm also running out of words to replace "said" (don't want to overuse it), so if anyone could give me a list of words, it would be appreciated. I hope you guys are having as much fun reading as I am having writing.**

_**-Divergent Half-Blood**_


	6. TLT: I Play Pinchole With a Horse

**Thanks for all the great reviews. More ideas are floating in my head! If anyone wants me to call anything specific (Helen, Susan, Mary), just say so. For now, I'll call her or Annabeth's step-mom. According to the law in Nevada, I must say this: I do NOT own the story Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief, Rick Riodan does. I am just using it to create a story. On with the story!**

* * *

"How about we take a lunch break?" Apollo suggested. The boys (except Paul and Fredrick) all nodded their heads furiously. The girls rolled their eyes at them. Boys and their stomachs. They all filed out into a a room with tables and self-filling plates/glasses. Here are some conversations:

PERCY, NICO, GROVER AND HESTIA

"So, how are your lives going, boys." Hestia asked.

"So far, I think it's great. I have the girl I love with me, and all my friends and family are safe. Couldn't ask for more." Percy responded.

"I dunno." Nico stated.

"Still trying to improve nature, but life's good." Grover said.

PAUL AND POSIEDON

"Sally's a great women. I can see how even a god can fall for her." Paul meekly told the god.

"Yes, she is a great women. I'm glad she found a good man like you. You're so much better than her ex." Poseidon said.

"And I still don't know how I got her." Paul smiled. Maybe Greek gods weren't all that bad.

ANNABETH, , ATHENA

"So, I hear you and Percy are dating." said, trying to take an interest in her step-daughters life.

"Unfortunately." Scoffed Athena. "Sons of Poseidon are known for breaking hearts." She said.

"But he's different. You'll see by reading these books. Besides, once you go through hell with someone, its kind of hard to hate them." Annabeth said.

raised an eyebrow. That has to be a hyperbole. Surely Annabeth wasn't strong enough to go through hell. Being a demigod can''t be that hard.

STOLLS, CHRIS, HERMES, APOLLO

"You boys planning any pranks?" Hermes asked his children.

They spent all lunch talking about their latest prank.

HERA

_Why isn't anybody talking to me?_

SALLY, PIPER, APHRODITE

"So, I heard that snob Gabe used to force you to use that little money in your clothes budget for other things." Aphrodite said.

"Yeah, but that was the past. Paul's a much better man." Sally replied.

"Mom, can you give Sally a bit of money so I could take her to go shopping and get a makeover?" Piper asked her mom.

"Of course! I'll make sure you two have all the money and spas you'll need." Aphrodite said.

_Who knew I would be getting help from the goddess of Love and beauty some day? _Sally thought.

HADES, DEMETER, DIONYSUS

"You need more cereal, Hades." Demeter.

"You need to calm the tartarus down!" Hades.

"You need to give me my daughter back!" Demeter.

"NEVER! I LOVE HER TOO MUCH!" Hades.

"Will you two shut up?" Dionysus.

And that's why Dionysus is eating cereal, running from Hades and his skeleton.

ARES AND CLARISSE

"You beat any monsters up lately?" Ares asked his daughter.

"Yeah, I kicked a hell hound's a** the other day."

They shared their stories of f****** up monsters for the rest of lunch.

KATIE, FRANK, HAZEL, AND LEO

"I never knew Percy did all this awesome stuff." Leo said.

"He doesn't like to share it. If you ask him, he gets all humble and says it's nothing." Katie explained.

"I get why he was able to beat those wheat monsters." Frank said. Katie and Leo looked at him.

"Long story. Don't ask." Hazel said.

THALIA, JASON, ZEUS

"Hey dad." Thalia said glumly.

"Hello, er...Thalia." He replied.

Jason didn't dare look at his dad. He didn't want to piss him off.

Thalia and Jason quietly conversed while Zeus wonders why his kids can't talk to him like Hades and Poseidon's kids talked to them. It wouldn't be breaking any laws.  
He took a glance at his kids and kept eating his nectar.

* * *

After lunch, everyone settled down in the throne room. Leo took the book.

**I PLAY PINOCHLE WITH A HORSE**

"No comment." Jason said.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

Everyone laughed at that. "I bet that was Grover!" Conner said, causing more laughter.

** I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"O la la." Aphrodite smirked. The couple blushed and looked away.

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?" ****I managed to croak, "What?"**

"How do you expect him to know anything?" Thalia asked. Percy huffed and said, "I'm not a complete idiot, you know."

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over-hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!" ****"I'm sorry, " I mumbled, "I don't... " ****Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding. ****The next time I woke up, the girl was gone. **

"Aww, you miss her already." Aphrodite lilted. Percy blushed and put his head in his hands.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

Hera smiled. She was glad Argus still watched over camp.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. ****My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.** **"Careful, " a familiar voice said. ****Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

The demigods and mortals laughed. "Oh, shut up." Grover implored.

** So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ... "****You saved my life, " Grover said. "I... Well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this. "** **Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.** ** Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.** **"The Minotaur, " I said.**

"You're an idiot." Nico decided.

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-" "That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull. " Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?" "My mom. Is she really ... " He looked down.**

So did the mortals and a few demigods. Losing people wasn't easy. Sally wished Hades hadn't taken her. Percy must have been so worried.

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

Thalia eyed Percy.

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

Thalia softened her gaze. Artemis looked at Percy. She was right. He was different,

**"I'm sorry, " Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world. "**

"No your not!" All the demigods yelled. Zeus thought that the satyr was a failture. He failed his daughter. He shouldn't be Lord of the Wild.

** He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole. "Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.** **Thunder rolled across the clear sky. As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. **  
**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

Hestia looked at Percy. He was a true hero. Even if his ego was a tiny bit big. His loyalty made up for it.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

"At 12, you looked like you were 8, Prissy. Nobody would believe your 17." Clarisse mentioned.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.** **I said, "It wasn't your fault."** ** "Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."**

"It wasn't it your fault!" All the demigods yelled at Grover. "I know, I know." Grover said, blushing.

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?" "No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."** **"But why ... " I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.** **"Don't strain yourself, " Grover said. "Here. " He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.** **I recoiled at the taste, **

Everybody except the mortals looked at Percy. Nectar tasted great.

**because I was expecting apple juice.**

"Oh.." Said all the gods/demigods.

** It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

All the girls (not Clarisse) in the room smiled at Percy. It was cute how Percy loved his mother so much. Most of the boys rolled their eyes and Apollo added this to his 'How to get Girls Easily' list.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.** **"Was it good?" Grover asked.** **I nodded."What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

"When don't you feel guilty?" Grover said. "Now." Percy replied, as one ton of water fell on Grover. "I-I-I w-w-wi-ll ge-et y-ou f-f-for th-th-at." Grover shivered, the water was cold.

** "Sorry, " I said. "I should've let you taste. "His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... Wondered. " "Chocolate-chip cookies, " I said. "My mom's. Home-made. "He sighed. "And how do you feel?""Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards. "**

"DO IT!" Ares and his daughter yelled. Everyone rolled their eyes.

**"That's good, " he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"** **"What do you mean?" He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting. "The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

All the demigods smiled, remembering their first spoils of war. The mortals, excluding Sally, wondered what he did. Probably shot the minotaur with a gun from afar.

** As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture- **

Annabeth smiled. He did notice.

**an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in** **bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"Nope. And one of your best friends is a horse with wings. Sad, Perce." Nico faked shock. He was curled in a ball when a mini tsunami hit him.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. **

"Oh, I'll show you 'cherub', Peter Johnson."Dionysus mumbled. "So true, Percy. I praise you." Hermes laughed. "I thought I was the only one who saw that." Apollo said, earning a slap from his sister.

** He wore a tiger- pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.**

"Got that right, kid." Dionysus smirked.

** "That's Mr. D, " Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... . " He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.** **First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard. "Mr. Brunner!" I cried.** **The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.**

"Good technique...unless he does that every time." Athena commented.

** "Ah, good, Percy, " he said. "Now we have four for pinochle. "He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you. "**

"Start respecting the campers more, or I'll give you 50 more years," Zeus commanded. Dionysus paled and said, "Yes, dad." The campers smiled. The mortals (minus Sally, duh) wondered how the kids liked camp if they had such a rude director.

**"Uh, thanks. " I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

Sally looked at her son. Maybe the monsters would have been better than Gabe.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.** **She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now. "**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron. "She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**

Athena and Annabeth glared at Percy, who shrunk down in his seat.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

Annabeth stopped glaring and leaned into her boyfriend. Athena's glare lessened but didn't leave.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.**

"Big ego alert!" Thalia said. "Like you don't have one." Percy retorted.

** Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep. "**

"Those are very...interesting first words to him." Piper noticed. Athena glanced at Annabeth. Her children wouldn't say that as a first introduction. Unless she knew he was a son of Poseidon, which she most likely didn't. Did she _like _him at 12?

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.** **"So, " I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"** **"Not Mr. Brunner, " the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron. " "Okay. " Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... Does that stand for something?"Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are power-ful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason. ""Oh. Right. Sorry. ""I must say, Percy, " Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time. "** **"House call?" **

** "My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... Ah, take a leave of absence. "I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class."You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked. **

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test.**

"So many potential campers killed on the way there. It's sad." Hazel surprisingly said. Everyone jumped. She had been so quiet they forgot they were there. _Killed? Probably just two or three a year. The monsters are easy to face, right? _The mortals (minus Sally and Paul) thought.

**"Grover, " Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"** **"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

The demigods and some gods laughed at this description. "Agreed!" Thalia said, after she got over a fit of laughter.

**"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously."I'm afraid not, " I said."I'm afraid not, sir, " he said. "Sir, " I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less. "Well, " he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting **

"His love for gladiator fights sure came in handy." Jason said, remembering when they had to fight the two crazy giants.

**and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules. " "I'm sure the boy can learn, " Chiron said. "Please, " I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question. " **

"Dionysus, I expect you to respect my son." Poseidon rumbled. "I didn't know, okay? Sheesh." He replied.

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile. Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer. **

Thalia and Nico burst out laughing. "I'm not that bad." Percy huffed and crossed his arms.

**"Percy, " he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?""She said ... " I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her. " **  
**"Typical, " Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?""What?" I asked. He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did. "I'm afraid there's too much to tell, " Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient. "**

"You didn't watch it? No wonder you asked so many stupid questions." Annabeth stated.

**"Orientation film?" I asked. ****"No, " Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive. " ****I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points."Mr. D, " Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?""Eh? Oh, all right. "Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully. "Wait, " I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God. ""Well, now, " Chiron said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical. "**

"Wait, so if Greek and Roman gods exist, is he basically saying that other gods like Jesus Christ's father and other single gods exist?" Leo interrupted himself. "No. Keep reading." Athena said a little too quickly.

** "Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"** **"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of** **Olympus. That's a smaller matter. "**

"SMALLER!" The gods roared, enraged. "No, he's just comparing it to capital G god." Percy said, hoping Chiron won't get sent to Tartarus.

** "Smaller?""Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class. ""Zeus, " I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them. "And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud-less day."Young man, " said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you. " "But they're stories, " I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science. " **

"Ah, yes. Science. As fake as some of it is, I'm impressed with their technology and finding out how bodies work. If it weren't for some intelligent mortals out there many would still be dying from Typhoon Fever, or getting surgery with dirty tools." Athena marveled. All but Annabeth, Fredrick, and Paul looked at her in confusion.

** "Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me. "I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... He wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy, " Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?" I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

Annabeth had been hoping she wasn't the only reason Percy refused immortality.

** "You mean, whether people believed in you or not, " I said. "Exactly, " Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain** **how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods. " "Oh, you'd better, " Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you. "** **Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock. " "A lucky thing, too, " Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe. '"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine. My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up. "Mr. D, " he warned, "your restrictions. " Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

"Keyword: FEIGNED," Annabeth said, nodding.

**"Dear me. " He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"More . D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game. Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits. ""A wood nymph, " I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space. "Yes, " Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence, ' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tear-ing them down. ' Ha. ' Absolutely unfair. "**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid. "And ... " I stammered, "your father is ... ""Di immortales, Chiron, " Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course. "I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master. "You're Dionysus, " I said. "The god of wine. " Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?""Y-yes, Mr. D. " "Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

"Only if I saw two Annabeths." Percy said cockly **(get you mind out of the gutter). **Annabeth blushed. Aphrodite gushed. She knew Percy had seen Annabeth in her. She couldn't wait to get to that part!

** "You're a god. "**

"Our reaction exactly." Hermes said.

** "Yes, child. ""A god. You. "**

"No one can believe it either." Apollo joked.

** He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

"Got that right." Dionysus growled.

** "Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly. "No. No, sir. "The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win. ""Not quite, Mr. D, " Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me. "I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too. "I'm tired, " Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment. "Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir. "Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners. "**

"That's not really possible." Nico teased. "Look who's talking, ." Percy retorted.

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.** **"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

Hestia smiled. Percy defiantly had a pure heart.

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... Ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus. ""Mount Olympus, " I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?" "Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do. ""You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... In America?" "Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West. ""The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization. ' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods.**

"All roads lead there." Reyna said. Rome was awesome. If it weren't for them, the Eiffel Tower would have been taken down by Hitler.

**Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods. ""And then they died. ""Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France,**

"Right over the Eiffel tower. Ah, the best place. Watching all those couples gaze at the horizon, proposals, happy times."Aphrodite recalled.

**to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. **

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand** **years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places.**

"Even in Vegas! The hotel, Caesar's Palace. Or that huge water fountain inside one of the hotels, that has Poseidon and Pegasi." Apollo dreamily said.

**Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here. " It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club. "Who are you, Chiron? Who ... Who am I?"**

"That," Travis said, wiping fake tears from his eyes, "is so deep."

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down."Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate. "**

"Who doesn't." Conner asked.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

"That is an odd description." Frank mused.

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk. "What a relief, " the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers. "**

"Done." Leo said. Frank got up and took the book.

**I BECOME SUPREME LORD OF THE BATHROOM**

* * *

**AN: **Sorry it took so long. I have finals tomorrow so... I hope you enjoy. Took me 5 days to make this one. The copy-paste thing is really slow. Anyways, review! I'll try my best to give you the next chapter ASAP.

_-Divergent Half-Blood (of Chrismassy awesomeness)_


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